Two stories here which, when taken together, fail to reveal the good news that the schools are open in Iraq.
Insurgents gain a deadly edge in intelligence
By John Diamond, Steven Komarow and Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
U.S. forces are losing the intelligence battle in Iraq to an increasingly organized guerrilla force that uses stealth, spies and surprise to inflict punishing casualties.
U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement officials say that after six months of intensifying guerrilla warfare, Iraqi insurgents know more about the U.S. and allied forces -- their style of operations, convoy routes and vulnerable targets -- than the coalition forces know about them. Indeed, U.S. intelligence has had trouble simply identifying the enemy and figuring out how many are Iraqis and how many are foreign fighters.
With local knowledge and the element of surprise on their side, the guerrillas are exploiting their intelligence edge to overcome the coalition's overwhelming military superiority. Insurgents routinely use inexpensive explosives to destroy multimillion-dollar assets, including tanks and helicopters. Using surveillance and inside information, the guerrillas have assassinated many Iraqis helping the coalition, gunned down a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, killed the top United Nations official in Iraq and blasted the heavily guarded hotel in Baghdad where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying.
Sophisticated U.S. intelligence tools such as spy satellites and electronic eavesdropping intercepts have been of little practical use, according to intelligence officials in Washington and military officers in Iraq. And despite an intense search and exhaustive intelligence efforts, deposed leader Saddam Hussein remains at large.
The key problem is that Iraqi guerrillas simply have more and better sources than the coalition. U.S. military officers worry that the Iraqis who work for them, such as translators, cooks and drivers, include moles who routinely pass inside information back to insurgents. In at least two cases, Iraqis have been fired on the suspicion that they were spies.
A former senior director in the Iraqi intelligence service says the Americans are right to be anxious.
"The intelligence on the Americans is comprehensive and detailed," says the Iraqi, who insisted on not being identified and spoke to a reporter in a private home rather than at a restaurant or hotel to avoid being observed. He says Iraqi guerrilla forces get detailed reports on what is going on inside the palace grounds occupied by Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, Bremer's staff and the Governing Council. Again on Tuesday, guerrillas fired mortar rounds into the "Green Zone," the heavily secured area of central Baghdad that includes Bremer's headquarters.
Paths to stability in Iraq
By Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer, November 5, 2003
Iraqis are angry at the U.S. failure to provide stability and restore jobs, but that anger hasn't exploded into broad-based resistance. Neither Kurds nor Shiites - who together make up the vast majority of the population - want Saddam supporters to return to power. So neither group supports the fierce resistance to U.S. troops in the so-called Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad, home to Saddam's most loyal supporters.
But Sunni resistance is growing. It has the potential to undercut the political and economic progress that must happen soon if most Iraqis are to maintain patience with the U.S. presence over the coming months.
Yet misguided U.S. policies are making that resistance worse.
In the Sunni triangle, American military tactics are increasing the resistance. Sunni tribal leaders complain about excessive force that has killed numerous civilians, and inspires local youths to undertake vendettas against U.S. soldiers.
"You have to ask," said one U.S. military official from another Iraqi sector, "whether different military tactics would produce different results
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the working definition of neurosis (or addiction.) The situation is beginning to develop along the lines of Steve Gilliard's darker speculations.
There are two foundational problems on the ground in Iraq: the force is too small and it is made up of the wrong kind of troops. Over the last three decades, the American Army has become heavy, relying on armored divisions. Which is great for warfighting, but terrible for fighting an urban insurgency. We need infantry, the kinds of troops who are trained to walk patrols outside of vehicle without getting all excited and shooting up the civilians. We also need translators, Civic Affairs specialists, Military Police and special forces. Rummy's Pentagon is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
The Pentagon announced today that is has notified 43,000 Guard and Reserve troops for early spring rotation into Iraq. As I said the other day, with this move, the Army is broken. Phil Carter, whose military analysis (and legal analysis) is as fine as anyone's on the Net, agrees.